Two years ago, when the Arab Spring was still freshly sprung and
the promise of democracy in the Middle East was tantalizingly close, the
world fell in line behind the young rebels of Syria. To the West, they
represented the hope for an inclusive, self-governing Syria by the
people and for the people. Other Arab regimes had been toppled after
decades in power, falling quickly to their constituents' protests
and demands. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia stepped down; Hosni
Mubarak in Egypt was arrested; Moammar Gadhafi in Libya was found in a
hole and killed. Why would Syrian President Bashar Assad prove any
different?

Somehow, he has proved different. While Assad remains holed up in
Damascus, his reportedly pregnant wife Asma by his side, his rank in the
hierarchy of world leaders continues to slip, and his country continues
to fall apart around him. Two years of calls to step aside have proven
futile, and prophecies of his imminent demise that followed Syrian Free
Army victories in Aleppo and Damascus this year were debunked. Now, one
of the most maligned dictators in modern history has also proved one of
the most obstinate. The pillars of his regime remain in place, as
retired Israeli Col. Jacques Neriah wrote in a post for the
(http://jcpa.org/article/stalemate-in-the-syrian-civil-war/) Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs , and the small minorities that support him
have banded together ever more tightly.

Among those minority communities are Syrian Christians, both in the
U.S. and in Syria, who have expressed a fervent hope that their group,
now numbering less than 35,000 in Syria, might continue to live in peace
under Assad. Theirs is a fight for survival, not necessarily a political
maneuver. "Under his government, Christians have been free to
worship and live their lives," said the Rev. Thomas Zain, an
American-born Syrian Christian, who currently serves as archpriest and
dean of the St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, N.Y.
"We're afraid of what might come."

Both Zain and the Most Rev. Cyril Aphrem Karim, the archbishop of
the Syrian Orthodox Church for the Eastern U.S., pointed to what has
happened to the Christian communities in Iraq, Egypt and Libya since
those countries' respective strongmen fell. The Iraqi Christian
community has all but fled, while Coptic Christians in Egypt have been
the target of violent attacks. "If this regime is toppled, our
people will suffer tremendously," said Karim, adding that if the
West really wanted Assad gone, it could have taken care of that "a
long time ago."

Karim and Zain also emphasized that the issue wasn't
"black and white." The idea of Assad staying in power was
simply preferable to Christians because the likely alternative would be
persecution at the hands of Islamist extremists. The presence of groups
such as Jabhat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda affiliate that's been a key
ally for the Free Syrian Army, has been a source of great consternation
for Western leaders, to the point where at least one analyst,
right-winger (http://www.danielpipes.org/12724/support-assad) Daniel
Pipes , has suggested it might be to the West's benefit for the
Syrian conflict to stagnate.

In an April 11 op-ed in the
(http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/11/pipes-argument-assad/)
Washington Times , Pipes made the argument that since the U.S.,
can't very well allow the Muslim extremists to take power in yet
another Middle East country, perhaps the U.S. should prop Assad up just
enough to allow the fighting to continue. "Better that neither side
wins," he opined.

In an email to the International Business Times, Pipes admitted he
wasn't expecting to see any major policy changes on the part of
President Barack Obama's administration. "[A policy shift to
support Assad] could happen under some circumstances," he wrote.
"For example, if there were some large-scale massacre by the rebels
or a major attack by them on Israel." He also said he was aware his
was the unpopular view. In multiple forums, the
(http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/04/12/1857601/column-in-top-conservative-publication-says-us-should-help-assad-slaughter-syrians/?mobile=nc) backlash to (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/04/12/backing-assad-is-not-an-option-syria/) Pipes's piece was
(http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/there-is-obviously-no-case-for-supporting-assad/) copious and (http://gawker.com/5994500/)
predictable : No one in the West supports, or at least wants to openly
admit to supporting, a dictator who has allegedly fired chemical weapons
at his own people.

Well, at least almost no one does. These Assad advocates, few in
number but strong in conviction, consist mostly of extreme right-wing,
almost-fascist political parties in France and Italy. The most prominent
of these movements is the National FrontA in France, the extreme
right-wing party headed by Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen,
a notorious French nationalist.

The National Front did not respond to a request for comment, but it
hasA (http://www.frontnational.com/2013/03/la-france-va-t-elle-entrer-en-guerre-contre-la-syrie/) bashed the current French policy of supporting
the rebels, saying it will lead to "Islamization of this
region." While Front politicians tend to mask their views under the
guise of being "(http://www.frontnational.com/2012/08/la-syrie-sera-t-elle-la-libye-de-francois-hollande/) anti-interventionist ,"
they also expressed dismay at the
(http://www.frontnational.com/2012/07/pour-la-communaute-internationale-les-civils-maliens-ne-valent-pas-les-rebelles-syriens/) duplicity of the
United Nations this year in its willingness to support the Malian
authorities against al Qaeda-linked Islamists in the north, but were
unwilling to do the same for the government in Syria.

The National Front's support of Assad lies not in a desire for
survival like the Syrian Christians, nor in a desire to see the
West's interests in the regions furthered like Daniel Pipes. For Le
Pen and the Front, this is local politics.

"Part of supporting unsavory regimes like Assad, or previously
Saddam Hussein, was to delineate themselves from the government
mainstream and show they're different from other parties,"
said Johan Levy, an associate professor of political science at
University of California at Berkeley. "Not too many people in
France think Assad is a great guy," Levy explained. "But a lot
of people in France don't want to follow the American lead."
While this particular expression of support for a despicable dictator
might not resonate, Levy said, there are lots of potential votes the
Front could rustle up by playing to the anti-American streak in France:
"They're trying to differentiate their product."

Another reason to prop up Assad is to support what the National
Front sees as a secular leader against the scary prospect of another
radicalized, messed-up, Islamist, Middle East country. In the
Front's view, Assad at least kept some semblance of order.
Jean-Yves Camus, a research fellow at the Institute for International
Relations and Strategies, or IRIS, in Paris, said anti-immigrant and
anti-Islam rhetoric is an old Front staple. "They are against
immigration, they are against Islam, and what they say now is that,
despire all of his atrocities, Assad has at least been able to keep a
peaceful coexistence between minorities in Syria," Camus said.
"This is not stupid thinking. There is no guarantee this will not
devolve into a civil war between Sunnis and Shias."

Both Levy and Camus were hesitant to classify the National Front as
an outright fascist party. "

Fascist

is a loaded concept, but I wouldn't just call them a
'very conservative party,'" Levy said. "Their
democratic credentials are in question. They're a dangerous party,
and their flirtation with the mainstream right is unsettling."

Similar to the NationalA Front, the Italians have a multitude of
far-right-wingers from which to choose when election season rolls
around. One of these is Forza Nuova, or New Force, founded in 1997 and
currently holding exactly zero seats in the Italian Parliament. Among
its ideals are such elements as outlawing abortion, withdrawal from the
European Union and the euro, and Islamophobia.

The party's official position on Syria is similar to that of
the National Front in France: We don't know what the rebels want,
and they could be extremists. "While we don't agree in many
respects with the Assad regime, Forza Nuova cannot fail to recognize it
as the sole legitimate government of Syria," a representative of
Forza Nuova wrote to the IBTimes. She also wrote that the party
considers Western intervention in the conflict to be "a serious
interference" in Syria's sovereign affairs, and that the
crisis in Syria will inevitably lead to instability elsewhere.

A smaller right-wing force, Casa Pound, or House of Pound, in
homage to the notoriously anti-Semitic poet Ezra Pound, also said it
considers Assad "the legitimate leader of a sovereign state"
who is being set upon by terrorist forces. When asked if it had also
supported other Arab leaders in the past, a representative of Casa
Pound, Adriano Scianca, said that while leaders such as former Egyptian
President Mubarak and former Tunisian President Ben Ali did not display
the same "courage, determination, or awareness" as Assad, they
were certainly better than the entities that replaced them. Scianca also
rejected the idea that the majority of public opinion was against Assad,
saying it only "exists in the system of the mass media, which is
effectively only one version of the facts."

Casa Pound will also be partnering in June with the
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/European-Solidarity-Front-for-Syria/280123615449307) European Solidarity Front for Syria for a protest march
called "Hands Off Syria." A European Solidarity Front
representative, Matteo Caponetti, said that, for Syrians, supporting
Assad "means defending their country, their land, their family,
their people," and pointed to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two big
funders and providers of arms to the rebels, as the true instigators and
perpetrators of the Syrian conflict.

Caponetti also mentioned that the National Front in France was one
of the most vocal supporters of the same cause, but that "Italy and
the rest of Europe has been silent."

The threat of radical Islam is one that is felt keenly in Italy,
and Assad is seen as a "bulwark" against this, explained
Vincent Della Sala, an adjunct professor of European studies at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, or
SAIS, in Bologna, Italy. These groups, Della Sala said, "see Assad
as a secular authoritarian leader ... who is standing up to the United
States and the narrow interests it is promoting." Intervening in
the war, he said, "does little to serve the interests of God and
country that these movements hold so dear."

Della Sala added: "What Casa Pound and similar movements claim
is that they stand for 'God and country' and that they see the
rebel movements in Syria as driven by radical Islam, representing a
threat to Christians in that country. Assad is seen as a strong man,
which fits into their general view of a leader and as someone who can
hold back radical Islam."

Both Della Sala and Gianfranco Pasquino, the James Anderson senior
adjunct professor at SAIS in Bologna, emphasized that these are small
movements. "They are very small, and not very influential,"
Pasquino said. "From time to time, they may get some votes here or
there."

Whether the planned collaboration between Casa Pound and the
European Solidarity Front in Rome will draw much water to the pro-Assad
movement's mill remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the
(http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/middleeast/assad-frames-syria-struggle-as-him-against-western-colonizers.html?ref=world&_r=0) New
York Times has reported that Assad in Damascus continues to insist that
the war is "a Western plot to recolonize" Syria, even as
diplomats in Washington and at the U.N. in New York continue to wring
their hands over what to do. Support a brutal dictator who fires on his
own people? Or support the rebels, who were once beacons of hope and are
now infected with unsavory anti-American types? At the end of the day,
said Archbishop Karim, "What I would like ... is to have peace, and
everyone in Syria having a say in the future of Syria."

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